Assimilation

Assimilation explores the subtle and often unseen entanglement of synthetic materials within ecological systems. Presented within a display case, the work adopts the character of a specimen or field observation, inviting close inspection rather than immediate recognition.

The sculpture combines heather roots and branches gathered from the moorland landscapes of West Yorkshire with fragments of shoelace that have been heat-fused onto their surfaces. As the synthetic fibres melt, they twist, contract and curl, gradually assuming forms that closely resemble the delicate structures of roots and tendrils. The resulting assemblage blurs distinctions between the organic and the manufactured, making it difficult to determine where one material ends and the other begins.

Heather is a resilient plant capable of thriving in nutrient-poor environments, yet it remains vulnerable to environmental disturbance and pollution. The work reflects upon the increasing presence of synthetic materials within soil ecologies and draws upon research into mycorrhizal networks, the complex underground systems through which plants exchange nutrients, resources and information. Recent studies suggest that nanoplastics and synthetic pollutants may disrupt these hidden relationships, interfering with processes that sustain ecological health.

Rather than presenting pollution as a dramatic intrusion, Assimilation considers a quieter transformation. The synthetic does not arrive as an obvious contaminant but becomes absorbed into the visual and material language of the natural world itself. In doing so, the work reflects upon a landscape in which ecological and artificial systems have become increasingly difficult to separate, raising questions about adaptation, vulnerability and coexistence in an era of environmental change.

Assimilation reflects upon a landscape in which the distinction between the natural and the synthetic is no longer easily maintained. Here, contamination is not encountered as an external force but as a gradual process of incorporation, producing forms that belong fully to neither world and yet emerge from both.